Once again I honor Senator's McCain's military service and the courage he displayed as a POW in Vietnam. Certainly worthy of an inspirational movie or naming streets, bridges or buildings for him or we could even construct a McCain memorial in the appropriate setting. But it does not uniquely qualify him to hold the office of President of the United States. And his biography from that life experience forward is certainly not an untarnished testimony to honor and courage. There is the failed marriage and his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal. He developed a reputation as a maverick over the years, but his words and actions since his failed bid for the Republican nomination for President in 2000 reflect either a change in his core values and principles or an unmasking of an underlying cynicism and political ambition that the country was not aware of. Little wonder that we recently witnessed his angry refusal of a reporter's request to define "honor". McCain "the maverick" might have shown the courage he did as a freshman congressman when he opposed Reagan's disastrous deployment of our marines to Lebanon and spoken out against the infinitely more foolhardy decision of Bush and the neo-cons to manipulate the country into the ruinous Iraq conflict. He would not have voted with Bush and his peers 90% of the time over the past 8 yrs and so easily reversed his positions on tax cuts for the rich, torture, immigration and a host of other critical issues. McCain "the maverick" would have chosen Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge as his running mate. And even though I do not share many of their views, I could have felt reasonably assured that they had the seasoning and judgment to safely be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. He would not have courted Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson or more recently sought out the support of John Hagee and Rod Parsley and he surely would not have allowed himself to be forced into the choice of a ultra-conservative neophyte as his running mate by a social conservative cabal. The nomination of Gov Palin as VP for the Republican Party--a "pit bull with lip stick" as she so aptly described herself. She delivered the offensively sarcastic and condescending lines they wrote for her with such relish. Nothing out of character there if you've had the opportunity to review her record as a politician and the calculating, ruthless approach she has taken to furthering her career. And the smoothness with which she misrepresented her record and belittled Senator Obama's life story and accomplishments--she effectively energized the Republican base as we all sat and watched the final transformation of the McCain Straight Talk Express into the Palin-McCain Double Talk Express. And now the right wing pundits and hate-mongers scathingly attack the media for their hurried attempts to vet this little-known, political neophyte with the potential of being elected in less than eight weeks to an office which would place her a heartbeat away from the Presidency . I'll close for now by recommending to you the excellent commentary of Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on the hypocrisy so evident in their protestations--http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card
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